Roswila's Dream & Poetry Realm

SEE ALSO: TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT (photos, realistic to abstract)

Saturday, May 14, 2016

STRIKING POSES (photo) & BRANCHES (dream narrative) by Roswila


BRANCHES

when I finally reach Dad late at night by cell
to find out how he's doing home alone in this storm
it's clear he's been drinking, a fact I note with a sad
passing sigh and go on to listen to his anxious
questioning of my whereabouts

I tell him I'd been taking down trees that the storm
was about to topple anyway, me, just muscling
them over in all that wet and dark and wind,
adding that at least my doing it first meant
there was some control over where
the three trees would crash

Dad's anxiety goes up a notch as he asks
if it was legal to shove those trees over myself,
instead of letting the storm do it;
I assure him they were just about to topple
anyway, and only he and I know I did it,
so it's really a non-issue

he's not much mollified as I go on to describe
the trees now flattened into the rain soft ground:
two southwestern types and the third, a huge
dark, spreading, northeastern beauty,
the first rough trunk I'd had to shove,
the hardest to budge, and the one
whose silhouette against a sunset I'll miss most

I describe how the three trees looked just before
I'd started shoving them over by flashes
of lightning: like a huge brain scan, neural branch
after neural branch of connections crisscrossing
each other, live wires firing up as the storm's
energy rushed instantly through them

Dad grunts lightly, I've lost his interest as usual
when I wax poetic, and we say our good-byes;
as I close my old flip top cell I chew over a wish
that I could as readily make an end to those
deeply tangled brain branches of my own,
those neural pathways grown and reinforced over
a lifetime that fire up at the slightest fear,
burning out whatever new connections
I've been building, yet one more time


[narrative on a dream of 5-13-16. "Dad" was my actual father in the dream. He was an alcoholic, and Dad was what I called him. Photo "Striking Poses" (5-2-16 009v3) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)
; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.

Friday, May 13, 2016

SUN STONE (photomorph) & GATHERING IN (dream inspired free verse poem) by Roswila


GATHERING IN

warming as always under the tutelage
of her bright smile I say "Yes, I agree,
teaching is where your heart clearly is"

our conversation winds down and I leave
the sun of her presence for poolside,
where I watch the surface of the water
rippling like laughter

I slip into a light doze in which I ask
the water where my own heart lives
"Hearts reconnect what perception
tears apart," it replies, "you live
to gather in the lost threads of metaphor"

a sudden breeze stirs me awake
and spins a large white rubber ball
across the surface of the water,
its shadow twin sliding smoothly
beneath it along the pool bottom
like a deep intuition


[free verse poem, inspired by a conversation and subsequent dream in an afternoon doze, written 5-12-16. Photomorph "Sun Stone" (3-28-16 001v2n) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)
; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

IN THE LOOKING GLASS (photomorph) & PRAYER TO AN OTHER (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila


PRAYER TO AN OTHER

there's a truth that we often find
our best mirrors in other folk, but
for once let me, like some ancient
vampire, not be able to see myself
and only find in the looking glass
what I've yet to explore about you:
a treasure laid down in layers
like mother of pearl,
beauty's response to pain,
a treasure I can only now approach
with the long ephemeral fingers
of images, buried as it is
by my own reflection


[non-dream free verse poem written 5-11-16. The fourth in a series of "Prayer to..." poems. (If you'd like, you can read the recently posted "Prayer to the Sun," "Prayer to the Haze," and "Prayer to Empty Moments.") Photomorph "In the Looking Glass" (5-2-16 003v2b) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)
; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

SKY HUNGER (photo) & THE SHOPPING TRIP (dream narrative) by Roswila


THE SHOPPING TRIP

all she wanted was to buy a few, select
healing herbs that used to be sold here

but all she finds in this mall-like basement space
are things she can't have, like that devilishly enticing
junk food (the exact opposite of healing and natural)

or the bottle of rose cologne she's holding in her hand
but will return to the shelf on the way out (too many
folk where she lives are allergic to perfumey scents,
no matter she really desires this particular one)

or the intriguing sisal rug offer in which she'd create
the design and they would replicate it in the weave
(too expensive at $60 an hour, and she doesn't need
another cover that will only trip her up,
no matter it's uniqueness)

maybe it's time to stop searching, it's all too clear
the healing herbs she seeks aren't available here now,
and all she's doing as she wanders, refusing to give up
even as her arthritic knees begin to ache, is agitating
appetite after appetite that's better not met

and maybe that's the healing to be found
in this frustrating trip: an affirmation
that despite what she craves, she will no longer
satisfy hungers that ultimately cost too much


[narrative on a dream of 5-10-16. Photo "Sky Hunger" (4-21-16 014v3a) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)
; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

NIGHT HUNGERS (photo) & AGING'S MAGIC (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila


AGING'S MAGIC

my current best friend
laughs with me as I hear of
Unca* bike riding:
90+ and shrunk small enough
to easily pedal a child's tricycle!

my laughter's peppered
with more than a bit of awe
at aging's magic:
even my always acerbic,
alcoholic uncle's been mellowed

returned to a time that perhaps never even
graced his hard life: the freedom to wander

and under his own steam, not at the beck and call
of that sense of duty laid down before he had a choice

duty that secretly soured him young and that he wielded
unknowingly like a bludgeon in his attitudes

my friend asks if the plans I'd made to visit him
back a while ago are still in the works

I say, no, it's no longer necessary now,
old age has done what no conversation could:

brought the playful child to the fore
of the endlessly bitter man,

opening a way for him to love,
and, just as important, to be loved


[mixed format poem on a dream of 5-9-16. *Unca = the nickname I'd had for the actual (now deceased) Uncle in this dream, before we became estranged. This is one of those dreams that just doesn't stop unfolding for me in different ways. Layer after layer. Most impactful, what it says to that part of me that has long recognized the similarity of my struggle to his. And the hope it offers. Photo "Night Hungers" (4-21-16 022v3e) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)
; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.

Monday, May 09, 2016

OUTED (photomorph) & AN INQUIRY INTO NOTHING (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila


AN INQUIRY INTO NOTHING

tell me, how's the cloud of nothing shaped?
so I can see it coming and step aside
before it swallows me whole, again
... yes, "nothing," as in " there's nothing here"

for example, he says "oh, it's nothing" (yet, the air
almost flares with all that's never been said)

or I comment "there's nothing I can say"
(yet my mind keeps extruding images
for what would burn me to speak)

or I think "there's nothing left I can do" (yet I reach
through the heat between us once more anyway)

or his actions trail "there's nothing for it
but to accept my failure" like a wisp of smoke
(yet isn't being alive by definition a success?)

and so it seems "nothing's" shape morphs
with each peculiar depth it protects
or cages, like someone in military camouflage
who outs himself proclaiming "Really, you can
trust your eyes, there's nothing here at all"


[non-dream free verse poem written 5-8-16. Still have those two dreams poems I mentioned yesterday awaiting posting. But this non-dream one above popped late yesterday and I'd rather put it up. Maybe mostly because it's new. I had a friend decades ago who was always delighted when one of our fellow poets would share just written work in a poetry reading: "Fresh poems!" she'd declare happily. Photomorph "Outed" (4-15-15 048v2b) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)
; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.

Sunday, May 08, 2016

ADUMBRATE (photomorph) & "a cat stalks..." (non-dream haiku) by Roswila


a cat stalks a bird
watched by another bird
... rose bush kerfuffle!


[haiku written 5-7-16. I have two dream poems ready to post but just don't feel like putting either up. And the scene in this haiku was such fun to watch as I sat eating a fudgesicle in the cool afternoon that I'd rather post it instead anyway. Photomorph "Adumbrate" (5-2-16 002v3b) by Roswila; best viewed in a larger version, so just click on the image if you'd like]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *
until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post)

; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.